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Research programs

The research group of Jet Smit in public health epidemiology focuses on the prevention of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases in the general population, from childhood to old age. Her group studies how lifestyle, in combination with the living environment, affects the development of respiratory diseases, early cardiometabolic indicators and later cardiovascular disease. Chronic diseases at later age may already start early in life and in some stages of childhood children may be more susceptible than others. For designing optimal preventive strategies, we focus particularly on identifying these susceptible time windows.

From 1992 till 2009 she was head of the Department of Prevention and Health Services Research (~60 fte) at the National Institute of Public Health. The department performed research to support evidence-based public health policy of the Ministry of Public Health. She started a research program on chronic respiratory diseases and was one of the principal investigators of the MORGEN-EPIC study in 25,000 adults, the Doetinchem cohort study in 5,000 adults and the PIAMA birth cohort study in 4,000 children.

Since 2009 she is professor of Public Health and Head of the Department of Public Health, Health Technology Assessment and Medical Humanities at the Julius Center. At the UMC Utrecht she is a member of the program committee Child Health and Coordinator of the Circulatory Health programm “Prevention and Public Health”.